Loris Cavaliere, the Montreal defence lawyer serving a prison term for letting gangsters use his offices to conduct their meetings, will be released to a halfway house within a week.

In a hearing before the Parole Board of Canada on Wednesday, the 63-year-old attorney said the 34-month sentence he received on Feb. 1 was a harsh lesson and he had learned from it. The two parole board commissioners who presided over his hearing at a minimum-security penitentiary in Laval agreed that Cavaliere appears to have made changes in his life and decided to grant him day parole, which will begin on Nov. 22. His will be eligible for full parole in May, and the board members could have pre-approved Cavaliere for that as well on Wednesday.

“But for now full parole is premature,” said Francine Cantin, one of the board members who heard the lawyer’s case.

When asked what led to his downfall, Cavaliere said he let some of his relationships with clients turn into friendships. Some of those clients would visit his offices for a coffee and gradually they asked to use his offices to hold meetings while assuming the police would never bug the offices of a defence lawyer because attorney-client discussions are considered secret in Canada.

“I didn’t put my foot down and say ‘stop,’ ” Cavaliere said. “It was gradual. They came in one day and they used the office to talk.”

Once the barrier was broken, Cavaliere said, he found it hard to say no when they asked again. But, he added quickly, he only has himself to blame. He said he realized this after he was arrested in November 2015, spent two weeks in the Rivière des Prairies Detention Centre and was handed the evidence gathered in his case.

“When you step back and look at everything, you realize, ‘Yes, I did facilitate things,’ ” he said. “Not even the criminals can be blamed because it was in their interest to hold meetings there because they (believed they) were protected by attorney-client privilege.”

Because of a publication ban, the Montreal Gazette is unable to report the names of the people who allegedly took part in those meetings. According to a summary of facts read into the court record when Cavaliere pleaded guilty, the meeting room at Cavaliere’s firm on St-Laurent Blvd., near the corner of Mozart Ave., was used by criminals to discuss “money laundering, payment of rent for (the permission) to sell drugs, collection of money and the possibility of using violence to solve different problems.”

It was only nine months ago, on Feb. 1, that Cavaliere, 63, a lawyer who specialized in organized crime cases, pleaded guilty to a gangsterism charge and a charge related to a firearm that police found in the basement of a building that housed his law offices in Little Italy. He received his current sentence as part of a joint recommendation made by the Crown and defence lawyer Martin Subak. Cavaliere was sentenced to a 26-month prison term for the gangsterism charge and eight months consecutive to that for possession of the 9mm pistol. Quebec Court Judge Pierre Labelle required that Cavaliere serve at least 13 months of the gangsterism charge before he became eligible for full parole.

Cavaliere was arrested along with several other people as part of an investigation into drug trafficking in the city. The investigation revealed that as early as 2012, Cavaliere was a key figure in an alliance forged between members of the Montreal Mafia, the Hells Angels and influential street gang leaders.

According to the summary: “On many occasions, Loris Cavaliere took part in conversations between several important organized crime figures who were known to police. He actively participated to see to the interests of organized crime. He served as a bridge between criminal organizations by delivering messages between incarcerated individuals or between organized crime factions.”

Cavaliere was not questioned about this specific allegation during his parole hearing, but during a break from the hearing, he told a Montreal Gazette reporter he doesn’t consider himself as having been “a bridge” between the groups.

He told the parole board that he worked as a lawyer for 35 years and that the last two, before his arrest, were the worst. He said he received two threatening letters and had to live alone “up north” with his dog while he waited for things to cool down in Montreal. He did not elaborate on what was behind the threats.

“When someone from that milieu calls and (threatens you), you can’t call the police. It wouldn’t be appreciated,” he said of his past clientele, which he conceded was “mostly organized crime.”

“I sleep better now,” Cavaliere said.

He also said he works out daily at a gym inside the penitentiary and has dropped 40 pounds since his incarceration. He now walks with a noticeable bounce in his step and appears much more relaxed than he did while he defended clients at the Montreal courthouse in the months leading up to his arrest.

Cavaliere told the parole board he is no longer interested in working as a lawyer. He said that he is currently suspended from the Quebec Bar Association and that a hearing on his status with the bar is scheduled for January.

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